More in China Willingly Rear Just One Child

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, Special to The New York Times

Published: May 9, 1990

DUANJIABA, China—
Gong Daifang, a 36-year-old peasant, has made a decision that her ancestors probably would never have understood: her 10-year-old son is enough, and she will not have another child.

Even when local leaders in this brick-and-mud village in Sichuan province offered to allow her to have a second child, she decided that for practical economic reasons she would have only one, instead of seven like her own mother.

''My husband and I thought it over, but we believe that this way we can save money and lead a better life,'' Miss Gong explained. China's population, the world's largest at 1.1 billion, is still increasing. But there are indications of a revolution in attitudes, with more and more Chinese couples falling in line with the nation's one-child policy as a matter of choice rather than compulsion. In view of the changing attitudes, some experts are predicting that China's population will actually decline after peaking in the early 21st century.

Coercion still underlies the one-child policy, and the rationing of the right to become pregnant remains a source of tension and bitterness in many parts of China. Many peasants grumble that the policy is not always carried out fairly, or should not be applied to them until they give birth to a son. Even Government officials acknowledge that some women are probably still forced to have abortions, and that many parents would like more children than they are allowed.

But there is little doubt that young people's attitudes are changing and that China's family planning campaign has much broader support than it did.

Interviews over the last year with families in scattered parts of China, including rural areas in Sichuan, Hunan and Gansu provinces as well as in Beijing, suggest that many young people today want only one or two children and that the traditional Chinese enthusiasm for large families is rapidly declining.

Deng Daoyun, a 24-year-old peasant who lives in the picturesque Sichuan hamlet of Sancun, 40 miles north of the city of Chengdu, is proud of her 3-year-old son but said she was happy to stop where she was.

''One child is enough. More kids, more nuisance,'' she said, mocking the old saying that goes, ''More sons, more joy.''

Liao Zhenxiu, a housewife in Duanjiaba, pointed at her television set and tape recorder as the reasons for not having a second child. ''If I had lots of kids, how could I afford these things?'' she asked. ''If you have lots of kids, you're poor.''

The Bottom Line Is Money

Two factors underlie the changing preferences. The first is the emergence of a quasi-market economy, in which a mother can get a job and earn more money if she has fewer children. The second is the institutionalizing of the Chinese Government's system of incentives and penalties that give enormous advantages to those who have just one child.

The incentives vary by region, but often a couple with just one child will get more land, a better house, a reduction in grain taxes and a subsidy amounting to about $15 a year -equivalent to more than a month's income for many poor peasants. On the other hand, those who have children without permission must pay fines annually for 10 years, amounting each time to 5 to 10 percent of the parents' income.

The upshot is that there is much less need today to drag women to abortion clinics, because cool calculation of the penalties may well lead them to seek abortions voluntarily.

It is clear that without the system of incentives and penalties, there would be more children. In Qinmi in Sichuan, 24-year-old Tan Wenbi cuddled her 20-day-old son and said she would have no other child. But asked what would happen if there were no one-child policy, she thought for a moment and then said that if that were the case she would like a girl as well.

In Tongzhi, a village in Hunan, 28-year-old Rong Maozi said she was delighted to have one boy and one girl. But if there were no pressure whatever, she said, she would continue to bear children.

''I'd like more kids, boys and girls, but they won't let me,'' she said. But her voice held no rancor, suggesting that more than a dozen years of propaganda about family planning have had an effect.

Acknowledging the Problem

''The lessons really have sunk in,'' said Aprodicio Laquian, a Filipino who recently completed a five-year assignment in China as country director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. ''If you ask a person on the street if China has a population problem, they'll immediately say 'yes.' ''

Despite the new attitude, however, foreign experts and accounts in China's official press say the family-planning program faces severe problems in meeting its short-term targets. Chinese officials acknowledge that it will be extremely difficult to meet their goal of holding the population to 1.2 billion by the turn of the century. China now has 1.1 billion people, and the number is growing by more than 15 million a year. The principal challenges are these:

* China's baby boomers, born after the famine at the beginning of the 1960's, are now in their reproductive years and will produce an echo of the earlier baby boom.

* Many young Chinese are now so prosperous that they can afford the fines for having a second or third child. In some areas these fines are called the ''extra baby fee.''

* The Government no longer has such tight control over the country as it used to.